Frankenstein's Monster had it in for him, Matthew had no doubt. His catalog of childhood fears included a small army of malevolent fictions, but what really kept him awake on summer nights was The Monster, precisely in the form brought to cinematic life by Boris Karloff. He swore to his parents that some nights he could feel The Monster’s presence, as though it were lurking just outside the house, perhaps watching him through the open window.

"We're on the second floor," his mother said, as if that could deter a creature in possession of superhuman strength and a murderer's damaged brain. "If you paid careful attention," his father said, "you would see he's portrayed as an innocent, sensitive creature, twisted by his experiences in the world, a victim of other people's irrational fears." His father was a good judge of inner character, but Matthew was seven years old, and more impressed by appearances, so he hid his face under stifling covers, barely able to breathe.

One late August night, as he lay in bed pondering how much credence he might lend to his parents' arguments, he felt a cold hand grab his ankle. He woke with a start. Only after a moment did it come to him that he'd gone to sleep and had, while unconscious, pulled the sheet off the end of the bed. The night air had turned cool, and a breeze now chilled the exposed part of his legs.

"It's all a dream," Matthew thought as he got up and padded across the room to close the window. The moon had just risen over the roof of the church that faced his house on the other side of the street. He stood in its reflected light, trying to interpret, with the limited tools of awareness available to a small boy, the words he had just silently uttered. He felt liberated from his anxieties about fictional monsters, no matter how vividly depicted, while at the same time he got his first inkling of an idea infinitely more troubling. What was a dream, anyway, if the worlds of waking and sleeping could invade each other so readily as to be intertwined or even indistinguishable?

Under the stiffly swaying elm trees that sheltered his street, moon-cast shadows kept rearranging themselves into unknowable forms. He heard some animal howling in a distant yard, but it didn't sound like a dog. The floor beneath his feet suddenly felt as though it might fall away. Matthew wondered if he could still be asleep, and looked back at the bed, half expecting to see himself lying in it. If he needed to wake up all over again, he hoped it would be soon. Morning was a long way off.

She drinks tequila straight from the bottle. The neck of the glass bottle is cool and smooth in her hand, but the liquid burns as it slides down her throat. She is sitting on the concrete edge of the pool, her feet numb to the coldness of the water as it ripples around her calves during its journey to the filter. She blinks and thinks her eyes must be red. It’s dark out and no one knows she’s here.      

             The hem of her black skirt gets wet. The tequila bottle rests heavy on her thigh. She sniffles. Her head does not feel like it is connected to the rest of her body. She knows how deep the pool is, only four feet where she sits, but it’s hard to tell looking at it with the solid blue lining, the darkness of after midnight, the tiredness of a long day, and the buzz of alcohol in her head.

            She wonders if this is how he saw it, before he jumped. Coming home late, drunk from a good time with his buddies, thinking that the water looked inviting, not thinking of the consequences.

            She stands now, and walks around the edge of the pool, leaving indistinct, soggy footprints on the concrete behind her. She sets her tequila bottle down and steps onto the white diving board at the deep end of the pool. She slowly walks to the end, noticing the gritty texture under her feet like she never has before. 

            She pauses and looks at the sight before her. The three foot concrete rectangular outline of the pool. The grass beyond the concrete, which she knows is lush and bright, but she cannot tell now in the scarce light of the stars and moon. Her parents’ house is tall and white and dark not many yards away. She memorizes it, only because she thinks that perhaps her brother had seen the same thing, last week, five days ago, around this same hour at night, in the same condition she was in.          

            It’s a morbid comfort and strain because she needs to know more. She takes a deep breath and jumps.

            She’s surrounded by water. It is neither cold nor warm. Her eyes are squeezed shut. For a moment she waits, holding her breath, trying not to swim. She waits until her lungs start to burn for another breath and then she begins to flail, trying to get back to the surface, which she finds a moment later, and she heaves for air.

            Water streams over her face. She paddles to the side of the pool and clings to the edge of the wall. She blinks the stinging chlorine out of her eyes. Something clogs in throat in the unfairness of it all. She feels too weak to pull herself out of the pool, so she holds onto the ledge, gripping the concrete tightly and kicking her legs beneath her to stay afloat. 

Margery Bayne splits her time between her home in Baltimore, Maryland and college in a minuscule town in Pennsylvania. Her main creative energies go toward writing fiction, but occasionally dabbles elsewhere when the muses insist.

STRAIGHT AND NARROW
 
Knees pump the midnight swings until summer knocks a tooth to the
asphalt. From there she hops the rails with girls, huddles beneath their
windbreakers; breathes their tangled hair, girls like Isabel and Dixie and
Anais, tossing cans at commuter trains as they leave the station.

In health class the slide projector clicks. Vas deferens. Epididymis. With a safety pin and Bic pen she carves names recklessly into her palm until the nurse takes her from them and tells her to straighten out.

College, macrobiotics, acupuncture. Yoga. Her limbs harden like
liver left on the stove. With her sack of wilted greens she worms around a
family that clogs the whole sidewalk. Round as Boteros. Holding hands.

At lunch her mother wears progressive lenses. Practical, her mother
says, spreading her napkin. The busboy delivers bread. Only now on top of everything she’s dizzy.
 
“Shirley Pulkin tells me her daughter – Annabel? – met someone
through online dating.”

“Isabel.”

Her father shuts his menu, says the eyes will adjust.


CRYSTAL

He sees her this way that she isn't. Vision is one thing. They are
past correction. She is his snowflake inside a kaleidoscope; really, she is a
spill of mixed beads.

He wants the light on. She begs for a blindfold. For how long, now?
He shakes her like a globe then waits for some truth to settle. Long, graceful
neck? She never was a dancer. Red curls — Victorian — are dyed, permed. Skin he could pour in crystal she cuts and bleeds, a reminder she's alive while she is
dying.

Afterward he says: stay, don't move, lie here, and she does; she lies on him like a keepsake until their bodies itch.


Sara Lippmann’s work has appeared in or is forthcoming from Rick Magazine,
Potomac Review, Word Riot, Fiction Circus, Slice, Carve, Fourth Genre,
LITnIMAGE, NANO Fiction, Fiction at Work and elsewhere.

  My parents and I are invited to Tommy Pringle’s house for dinner.  Tommy and I have been in the same class for four years in a row now, counting kindergarten.  I like him, but he’s not, not my boyfriend, though that rumor is still going around. (R-u-m-O-r.  I missed it on Friday’s spelling test.)

After the How are yous and We are fines, Mrs. Pringle leads us into the dining room, where we are greeted with splendor. (S-p-l-e-n-d-O-r.  Missed that one, too.) The table is set with a fancy lace cloth that you can see through to another one that is a turquoise blue. The silverware is shiny and has curly scrolls on it.  The plates are big and colorless but they have a gold band around the edge that reminds me of a movie I saw with English castles in all their splendor, so I think these must be English dishes.

Mrs. Pringle tells me where to sit—next to my mom. Tommy and my dad take their seats across from us.

Mr. Pringle stands at one end of the table, and Mrs. Pringle brings in a plate with the biggest hunk of meat I’ve ever seen, and sets it down in front of him.  “Roast beef,” my mom whispers to me.  He takes this huge fork and stabs it into the beef, holding it down, like maybe he thinks it’s not all the way dead yet.  Then he picks up a knife that looks like a small sword, and begins slicing.  Mrs. Pringle goes back into the kitchen and brings out the rest of the food on a tray—bowls of mashed potatoes, gravy, and peas. 

When everyone has a plate full of the gorgeous food, Mrs. Pringle tells Tommy to say Grace.  He says the quick “God is great” one, and then we all say “Amen.”  Tommy looks over at me and grins. 

The food is so full of majesty that I want to roll my eyes toward Heaven.  I’m seeped in roast beef happiness when Mrs. Pringle tells Tommy to get to work on his peas.  That’s how she puts it.  “Tommy, you need to get to work on your peas.”

Tommy makes a face.  “I don’t like peas.”

“There are boys and girls in China who are starving,” she says.

“Not any more,” I say.  “They’ve got fast food now just like us.”  This little tidbit, which I have to admit might not be a true fact, gets me a look from my dad that says, Stay out of it.

Tommy looks embarrassed, but an order is an order.  He scoops up a mound of peas, opens his mouth, wide as a dump truck, and drops them in.  Then he takes a big gulp of his milk, and down the hatch they go, with barely a chew.

The whole time Mr. Pringle is studying his plate like it’s a test he’s going to fail, while Mrs. Pringle watches Tommy like a warden.  Once the pile of peas is all mowed down, Mrs. Pringle says, “Good job, Tommy.” 

I go back to dipping into the mashed potatoes with its little shiny pool of gravy, and stabbing one pea after another with my fork.  I think it should be said that I like peas.  I continue to saw away at the beef, which is deliciously tender.

I hear a little hiccupping sound about then, followed by a groan, but bigger, with agony thrown in.  It’s the unmistakable sound of upchucking.

Tommy is bent over, retching.  On his plate is a mound of lumpish green vomit, some of it oozing into the mashed potatoes and the beef.  My stomach does a little flip flop, but doesn’t let me down. 

“Young man,” Mrs. Pringle says.  “It looks to me like you haven’t finished your peas after all.”  Tommy is white, nearly as white as the milk he drank.  He looks scared, but he speaks up.  “I did too,” he says, kind of cross.  “I ate them all.”   

Mrs. Pringle looks down to the other end of the table, where her husband cowers.  (C-o-w-E r-s.  Got that one right.)  “Tom, she says, loudly, “Tom.” 

“Go ahead, Tommy,” Mr. Pringle says.  “Mind your mother.”

Tommy picks up his spoon.  I close my eyes.  This time I’m really praying.  Scrape, goes his spoon against the plate.  Scrape, scrape.  It’s a high pitched, grating sound, like a tiny scream.  When it stops, I open my eyes to see that all the green is gone.  I want to say something to Tommy but he’s staring at his plate, and I can tell he’s working hard to keep from crying. 

Did I mention the napkins?  The Pringles use cloth ones that are the same color as the table cloth that’s under the lace one.  My dad throws down his napkin, and scoots back his chair.  Then my mother shoots up, folds her napkin, neat as you please, lays it on the table, and says to me, “Lollie, we’re going,” and we do. 

Tonight my diary will overflow its banks when I pour into it this tale full of woe and wonder, of how I came to realize that I am madly in love with Tommy Pringle.

 
Linda Lowe received her M.F.A. in poetry from the University of California, Irvine.  A chapbook of her poems, "Karmic Negotiations" was published by Sarasota Theatre Press, and several of her short plays have been informally staged in Hollywood.  One of her stories appeared last year in The Pedestal Magazine.  She lives with her husband in Southern California.  
 

AND THE SNACKIES GO TO. . .

STORY:  “The Thing About Magical Thinking” by Katrina Gray
Appearance Date:  May 20, 2010

This is a tender, moving story about loss, love, and the lengths to which we will go to support our closest friends in their time of need that also happens to have a blow-up sex toy doll in it. 

Favorite line: "She's fake, Carl." 

Say these things don't matter and I would (mostly) agree with you, and call me a sexist if you will (and I wouldn't agree with you), but I also think it adds a layer of resonance that this story was written by a woman. 

Katrina agreed, by the way. Bravo, Ms. Gray!

POEM:  “Third Post Card from Iraq” by Sandra Benitez
Appearance Date:  August 4, 2010

As I discussed with Sandra during her acceptance process, what I love about this poem isn't that it's another poem about war that happens to have some birds in it, but that it's a poem about birds that happens to have some war in it. 

Congratulations, Katrina and Sandra.  Your pieces were evidence that the grace and power of words can touch people and move hearts. 

I will be contacting you to see where you would like me to send your gift card.

THE SNACKIES are a non-prestigious award given by the chief court jester and dishwasher here at LITSNACK.  Based solely on his highly-subjective tastes, THE SNACKIES will be awarded roughly every six months, with one poem and one story being chosen for the preceding time period.  Recipients will receive one $5 gift card to Starbucks in recognition of their fine skill and finesse with the English language in their chosen genre. 

He bounced over the beach, twirling and leaping as sunlight warmed the breeze on his belly, like when he and Janie were six. His jacket slid down his arms into a Batman cape and he laughed, skidding to a stop and crashing onto his back, mouth open and eyes wide.

“In’t they lovely…”

A voice made him jump. He twisted to see two women tucked beneath the dunes, soaking up the sight of three tiny sisters stampeding sandcastles.
“Aw, dumplin’s…”

Caramel puddings sticky with salt, the youngest looked past her mother right into his eyes so he beamed and mouthed, “Janie?”

She beamed back.

“Carrie! Here.” Woman, leaping up with sand running in rivulets over her frock. Glaring at the man with the scar who grinned at little girls. Herding her daughters in a furious flap. Frosty silence until his smile faded and he stood, backed away, tried to go forward, backed away again, hypnotized by the pulse of forwards, backwards, forwards so that he carried on rocking even as the mother bustled her brood away.

Murmurs, “…off his head.”

He watched them go. Woman and small girl out of reach. Like the day the truck took Mum and Janie. Leaving him to dance a child’s step all alone, heal the hole in his head, try to move forward, back, forward, back, not understanding the stares nor why his fingers could never keep hold of sand.


My bio: Martha lives and writes in the UK; she hugs her figments here: www.marthawilliams.org